


Save the Date

by mynameisnoneya



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Being stood up, Comedy, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Love at First Sight, Restaurants, Waiters & Waitresses, blind dates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisnoneya/pseuds/mynameisnoneya
Summary: Who says that blind dates are terrible?  Probably not Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane, two complete strangers who inadvertently realize that such an event can be the best thing in a lonely soul's life.





	Save the Date

**Author's Note:**

> Today is my birthday, folks, so I thought I'd celebrate by posting the first chapter of a short little number I started working on late last night while battling yet another round of insomnia. This story will explore the instant chemistry between a college co-ed who works at her family's restaurant and a slightly older man who comes to her eatery, intending to meet a blind date but winding up meeting his soul mate.
> 
> Please note that I made sure to tag any and all characters that appear in this work, whether they have a speaking role or not. 
> 
> General disclaimer: GoT characters and quotes belong to GRMM - I own nor claim nothing!
> 
> If you enjoyed this work, please let me know by leaving comments and kudos!

__

_About two hours and thirty-six minutes ago…_

“Good evening, sir, and welcome to The Smoking Log,” the pretty, redheaded server chirped politely at the very, _very_ tall man whom Margaery, the restaurant’s hostess, had just seated at the two-seater table situated next to the massive picture window overlooking the bustling foot traffic here in downtown Winterfell.  Typically, this table was reserved for couples on Friday and Saturday nights, so as Sansa stood on the ready, menus locked and loaded, she wondered to herself just where this man’s other half was at present.  “My name is Sansa, and I’ll be your server this evening.”

“I’m no sir, girl,” the uncommonly large patron snapped, forcefully slapping his cell phone down on the table next to the silverware that Sansa had just laid out for him, snatching the menu from his formerly smiling server’s startled hands without even making eye contact with her.  The gruff man’s shoulder-length, jet black hair shrouded his face like a curtain when he leaned forward slightly, scrutinizing the menu as if Sansa weren’t even present.

“Um, sorry.  ‘Not a sir.’  Right.  My mistake,” Sansa snarked slightly, forcing her face to freeze into its most courteous form while waiting for the man to speak again, or better yet, go ahead and place his damn order so she could haul her shapely ass back to the kitchen and find Margaery so Sansa could complain about the humungous jerk that Margaery had seated in Sansa’s section.

And as Sansa stood at the ready, unconsciously tapping her pen on top of her notepad, she glared at the side of the oversized man’s head as he continued to silently study the list of meals available.  Seconds morphed into a minute.  Then another.  Still the man said nothing.

Nothing at all.

Nope.

Not one word.

The giant man whose face remained a mystery just sat there motionless in his slightly-too-small seat, examining the menu as if he were Champollion trying to decipher the Rosetta Stone.

By the time a full two minutes of tense, awkward silence passed as Sansa stood like a guard on sentry duty, waiting less than patiently for the rude, uncommunicative man who continued to silently study the menu to speak, the increasingly irritated redhead was at her wits end.  Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Sansa bit the inside of her cheek, daring to try once again to be nice to the massive man.

“Would you like to hear about tonight’s specials?” she asked as politely as possible, donning her best cheesy smile, hoping that the mute man would snap out of his menu-induced trance and place his order quickly.

Of course, he didn’t.  And of course, the next thing that finally leaked out of his mouth was equally as rude as his entire demeanor.

“Now why the hell would I want to do that?” the grumpy patron huffed, flipping open the side flaps of the menu once again as if by doing so, he would magically make a new dining selection appear.  “Everyone knows that the ‘specials’ are just reheated leftovers from yesterday that the cook reassembles into some unlisted dish for double the original price.”

That did it.

Sansa was done.

D-O-N-E.  _Done._

Today had been pure hell.

First, already running late for her first class at Kingsroad College, a flat tire greeted her when she had left her apartment.  Then, when she tried to change her flat, Sansa discovered that her older model sedan in fact did _not_ possess a spare.  Perhaps she should have checked the status of that feature before such an event had occurred.  After begging her older brother, Robb, for a ride to class, she had to listen to him grumble and bitch at her like he was their dad the whole way as he drove her to campus, chastising her for not keeping up with her car’s maintenance and admonishing her for letting her roadside assistance membership expire.  When they finally arrived at campus, Sansa all but launched herself out of Robb’s black truck before he had managed to park at the curb.

Now almost forty minutes late to Dr. Baratheon’s one-hour lecture, Sansa had tried her best to slither into his classroom unnoticed, but as always, Sansa’s luck was nowhere to be found.  She stumbled as she had attempted to tiptoe up the stairs to the top row, dropping her barely zipped backpack, the contents spewing forth onto the worn-out tiles with such a racket that her professor ceased his lecture immediately as all curious-as-hell eyes turned toward her.  Never known for his patience on any given day, Dr. Stannis Baratheon didn’t miss a beat, asking her point blank as she scrambled to gather her things off the floor whether she agreed that Donne’s _Devotions_ (which she had forgotten to finish this week while cramming for her midterms in her “Women Writers of Britain” course under Dr. Tarth) included a polemic Arminian denunciation of Puritanism.

Throw in being taunted by Harry, her dumb-as-shit but wealthy-as-fuck ex-boyfriend, at the University Center during her lunch break between classes, mixed in with a healthy dose of perpetually unwanted parental advice from her mother regarding Sansa’s choice of major when she showed up for work at her family’s restaurant a couple of hours ago, Sansa could honestly say that today was by far one of the _worst_ days that she had endured in her twenty-two years on the planet.

And to top it all off, here sat the ginormous pièce de resistance of her entire gag-worthy day.

Her potential tip be damned, Sansa Stark was in no mood to put up with some giant ass’s foul attitude.

“Actually, Mr. ‘Not-a-Sir,’” she seethed, the fakeness of her overly pleasant demeanor dripping from her freshly salted tongue as she folded her arms in front of her ample bosom, “We do not have a ‘cook,’ as you so eloquently put it.  My cousin, Jon, is a graduate of Leiths School of Food and Wine.  And for the record, our family would never serve ‘reheated leftovers’ to our customers.  _Ever_.  So, if you’re looking to dine on such fare tonight, you have most assuredly ventured into the wrong establishment.”

Completely caught off guard by her unmitigated, forthright demeanor, the supremely tall man laughed.  For real.  He literally laughed loudly as he closed the menu, laying it down on top of the dining table.  As his laugh melted into a soft chuckle, the now highly-amused patron lifted his gray eyes to meet hers.  And when the man brushed aside his shaggy mane, for the first time since Sansa had approached the table, she snagged a very good look at the uncommonly tall man’s face.

Half of her customer’s face was a ragged mess of zig-zag scar tissue, reddened raised ridges running from his forehead to his jawbone.  He was missing an eyebrow on that side of his visage, too.  Obviously, this snarky man must have experienced one hell of a trauma at some point in his life to be walking around with a set of scars like that.

“Forgive me,” the customer sporting the silky black dress shirt and slacks sighed heavily, “I must apologize for my behavior.”  As the man blinked, his silvery orbs narrowing slightly as Sansa continued to stare at him, his lips pursed as he added with a noticeably fake grin, “Take a good long stare.  You wouldn’t be the first.”

With a sharp intake of breath, Sansa realized her faux pas.  She had been gawking at him, her bright blue eyes blown wide partly due to shock and partly due to curiosity.  But damn it, she just couldn’t look away, no matter how utterly unmannerly she was behaving at present.

“I’m meeting a lady here tonight,” her customer continued, lowering his eyes to the table while fiddling with his cell phone.  “Well, I _was_ meeting a lady here tonight, but she canceled.  Apparently, the blind date my buddy set up wasn’t so blind after all.”  Shrugging his broad shoulders in a self-deprecating fashion, the man let out yet another sigh as he lifted his eyes once again toward Sansa.  “No need to take out my frustration on you, though.  So, please forgive me, miss, for being such an ass.”

As Sansa processed the man’s unexpected confession and apology, she suddenly felt tremendously guilty for snapping back at him like she had.  She should have been more patient.  Maybe this guy was simply having a bad day, too.  Well, he did deserve her snarky retort, that was true, but perhaps he was a nice guy after all.  Everyone has bad days, and damn her if hers had been nothing short of a masterpiece.  Even though having a bad day was no excuse for him being curt, he had apologized, right?  Sansa had her fair share of assholes come into the restaurant who never batted an eye at their behavior toward her or the other wait staff.  At least _this_ guy had the decency to man-up and acknowledge his painful lack of decorum.

 _A blind date,_ Sansa wondered to herself, allowing her baby blues to scissor across the man’s muscular form, hoping that he wouldn’t notice.  Her gaze drifted along the contours of his fitted black shirt, snug enough to allow a woman to see he was well-built but tasteful enough to not be ridiculous.  His biceps were totally huge, that much was obvious.  He definitely looked like the sort of guy who power lifted or something equally as heinous in the gym.  If she were a betting woman, Sansa would wager that he could pick up the front end of her car.  And he was hairy.  Very.  Hairy.  That slightly opened neckline at the top of his black dress shirt made that plain as day.

Lost momentarily in her assessment of the total stranger’s physical attributes, Sansa was suddenly snapped back to reality upon hearing the man clear his throat.

“I accept,” Sansa replied sweetly, unable to contain the quirk of her lips.  How fast the dynamic between customer and server had shifted.  The uncommonly tall man, whose own mouth curved into a small grin as they stared at each other, was actually quite handsome, come to think of it, even if he sported a serious set of scars on one side of his countenance.

Huh.  Maybe today wasn’t so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> And now, Sandor's perspective on the whole ordeal...


End file.
